how to be a furry:publicity

There are to ways to publicize onself as a furry; Famous and Infamous.
Famous
Be longsuffering, kind, non-envious, humble, courteous, patient, good, and truthful. Bare all things, believe all thngs, hope all things, endure all things.
Infamous
Fun

Infamousity

Despite being an awesome potential band name, infamousity requires hard work. But it's fun, hard work, because it requires you to piss off and squick lots of people.
How many people?
Round numbers? Hundreds. At least. Moving on...

Fetishes

The Furry Fandom has, arguably, the most tolerant view of fetishes I've ever seen. Got a Nazi fetish? Done. Think porings are kinky? Pics waiting for ya, even though you may have to venture onto Japanese sites for those. An oft quoted rule is that "no matter how horrible the image, someone, somewhere, is jerking off to it". There is undoubtedly an alt.sex.deadkittens newsgroup.

The reason I mention this is that you can become "furmous" from creating and exploiting a certain fetish, no matter what it is.
You mean like drawing art of said fetish, posting it in communities dedicated to said fetish, and "casually" mentioning that one does commissions?
Exactly.
Sounds good. So, how do I choose a fetish?
Watch VCL for a few days, and pick up on whatever's easy to draw and popular. Then draw a lot of your fursona doing it.
Got it. Anything else?
If you draw a particular fetish well enough, you may actually become legitimately good at it. You'll also need to become irritated at the people stealing your work, and eventually leave the Fandom.

A good tactic is to make your "thing" a fetish. For example, remember the rings on slave collars dangling from a chain on the list of potential "things"? On males, it could be hung on the penis, attached to a genital piercing, or used as a ring gag. Females can hang it off their nipples, use it as a ring gag, hang a toy from it, or use it to hold themselves open, among other things. Herms can do all of them at once.
What if I want to create a fetish?
  1. Pick a random room in your house.
  2. Pick a random object in that room.
  3. Insert it into an orifice.
  4. Boom goes the furnamite.
It can't be that easy.
It isn't. Sometimes the object's too small, and then you have to make it ridiculously outsized.
Can't an object be oversized?
No.
But-
Talking about furries here. No.

However, with objects that bind things, it's sometimes better to use them to hold clothing together, as piercings, or illogically large, vaguely phallic weapons. A stapler, for example; you can use giant, outsized staples to just barely hold clothes together over one's "proud mounds", an ear piercing(Note: furries rarely have anything other than their head pierced. No one knows why.), Or a giant, red, Swingline staple cannon. For added esotericism, have it eject TPS reports as spent shells.

Art theft

In the fandom, this is by far the second most-common method of acheiving notoriety, after being a complete prick.

Common mistakes are made by almost all art thieves:
  • Stealing from popular artists.
  • Stealing from artists with a large, sic-cable fanbase.
  • Posting stolen art in the same circles the artist's fans are likely to be perusing.
Clearly, there is only one solution: steal from artists who have left the fandom. That way, their art isn't online—but for some obscure, dusty archives—and they have no appreciable fanbase. It is also impossible for them to complain about art theft without returning to the fandom, whereupon you will immediately set about them with questions about "abandoning your fans" and "abusing trusts". This will buy you enough time to lay in a stockpile of art ganked from others before deleting your stolen work and apoligizing.

If you must gank from a popular artist, make sure they know.
Say wha?
I mean it. Copy several pieces, then, if no one picks up on it, create an alternate identity and notify the artist. Wait a few hours, then delete most of the stolen work. As soon as the artist's fanbase starts descending on you, delete those as well. This type of gambit requires nerves of steel and a fast hand on the mouse.

Alternately, copy a fursona's design, then notify the artist. Claim that the piece is just fanart—in stark contrast to the copyright notices you posted all over the picture—and modify any description to reflect as such. Or simply delete the pictures as soon as the artist sees them. Or preemptively accuse the original artist of stealing ideas from you, years ago.

You can carry on with these for years. One artist was more-or-less art-stalked by an art thief for the better part of a decade. The thief eventually issued a public apology—after what pretty much was an Internet witchunt for anything she so much might have drawn on a grocery store freezer—and from then on became a mature, respected member of the fandom.

But where's the fun in that?

being an utter dick

This is the most common method for acheiving notoriety on the Internet, much less the fandom. It requires that you piss off everyone, or almost everyone, who ever comes into contact with you.
Where do I start?
Livejournal's good. Jump into a debate about sexuality with a controversial and illogical viewpoint. Then—this is important—defend that viewpoint against all comers, regardless of how good their arguments are.
For how long?
Until the post is locked. By then you should've made an open post about the issue on your own LJ. If you're doing well enough, the debate will continue there. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Anything else I can do to get people to want me dead?
You could start a show about accesible, simple cooking on Food Network, and be a cute, perky, brunette, a smart guy in glasses and a bad shirt, or a large man with a soul patch making food for strangers.
What?
You can steal art.
Didn't—
No. That was the copying of another's creative property. I'm taking wholesale, federal-crime, punch-you-in-the-butt-state-pen, illegal sale of another's material.
But what if I get caught? Won't I go to jail?
Check a few pages back; if they had any money with which to take legal action, they wouldn't be furries.

There is one noticable exception: one particular furry was arrested and sent to jail on a charge unrelated to his furry art piracy. (Note: he didn't resell the work, just copied it out of CDs and portfolios and posted it on the internet.)This both meant that he had a fixed address, and charges could be filed with more or less a letter and some phone calls. It's dubious as to how many did so, but there were sure a lot of self-congraulatory remarks all around the Internet. When a guy can cause that much drama by simply going up the river on something that had absolutely nothing to do with the fandom, he must be doing something right.

Remember, the guiding principle of furdickery is that you are right, and anyone who says elsewise is a dick.

Leaving the Fandom

When all else fails, and there's nothing else to do, tell the fandom "I wish I could quit you." Then proceed to do so. Start pulling in your suckers friends around you; Ma, Pa, I'll send money back. Suzy, Jimmy, you stay away from the crick. Anne Mae, I'm going to save up a little, and I've had my eye on a spot out on Saunder's Ridge. Rover, you take care of them all, y'hear?

The trick is never to explicitly announce that you're leaving the fandom, just imply that you're about to. Then, one day, everyone reading your blog realizes that you haven't drawn your hermaphrodite dragon-wolf fursona in months, and have been limiting yourself to wizards and elves and regular stuff like that. Sooner or later, inqueries will begin to trickle in about the status of your furry work. Quietly confide—to everyone—that you've been experiencing a lot of stressful situations with your life and cash flow and such, and you've taken a hiatus from the fandom.

Here are some good excuses reasons for leaving the fandom.
  • Overpopularity
  • Underpopularity
  • Rampant idea theft
  • Rampant unauthourized redistribution
  • Rampant computer
  • Taking time for schoolwork.
  • Taking time for post-tertiary education(i.e.: night school)
  • Taking time to "get life in order"
  • Taking time for career
  • Too much drama by other artists.
  • Too much people trying to start drama with you.
After several months to a year, draw a furry-influenced piece. Your fans will eagerly ask if you're returning to the fandom. Tentatively reply that you're "feeling your way back" After several months, with the volume of your furryish work increasing, announce that Livejournal icon comissions are open again.
On to art, fiction, and RP!